The Glass Falcon Read online

  Folley & Mallory

  The Glass Falcon

  E. Catherine Tobler

  Published by Apokrupha

  copyright E. Catherine Tobler, 2015

  ecatherine.com

  Cover by Ravven

  ravven.com

  apokrupha.com

  Adventures of Folley and Mallory

  The Rings of Anubis

  The Glass Falcon

  The Honey Mummy

  The Clockwork Tomb (coming soon!)

  I.

  The cathedral of blackened bones cascaded from its confines, falling with the echoing screams of the dead. They shook free from the artful forms they had been fashioned into. No more crosses or hearts of skulls would decorate this wall; they spilled as if they had been thrown with violent force, cracking their brittle selves in the plunge.

  Eleanor Folley could not escape, dragged down by gaunt arms clawing at her skirts. She tried to kick herself free, tried to place a boot into the skull of the skeleton tearing at her, but there was no skull, only the stalk of a neck long since severed. The fingers curled into her stockings with more insistence.

  “Eleanor!”

  She pushed up through the flood of bones, toward Virgil Mallory’s voice. She reached for Mallory’s hand, but grasped another skeletal hand instead. Darkened bones wrapped her hand in a grip as cold as death itself.

  “Vir–”

  The hands pulling at her finally had their way; she slipped through the bones as if Alice falling down a rabbit hole. Eleanor cried out, tried to anchor herself on other bones, but none would hold her; none would argue with those that pulled her down. No matter which way she struggled, the bones washed over her, clouds of dust darkening the air.

  When at last her boots hit the catacomb’s dirt floor, she put boot before boot and ran, but could not outrun the flood of remains. The bones filled the narrow corridor behind her as water would, surging and pressing her onward, rolling under her boots until she was thrown to the ground again, overwhelmed by the skeletal tide. Turning head over heel, she spied Mallory’s hand, but could not reach it before he too was claimed by the surging dead.

  II.

  Seven Days Earlier

  Paris, France - November 1889

  The Egyptian seal, had it been whole, would have filled Eleanor Folley’s palm. As it was, the ancient piece of blue glass sitting within the Louvre’s vitrine was only a small and ragged crescent, fracturing the light that spilled through the glassed, hinged doors. Eleanor looked up to meet Virgil Mallory’s burnished brown eyes. His eyebrows inched upward in silent question.

  “It is not the damage that most dismays me, Miss Folley,” Doctor Fionnlagh said. With his bushy head of white hair, and exuberant sideburns he reminded Eleanor of a hedgehog carved from palest soap, round and apt to expand in bristles if challenged. His face was kind, Scottish to the very depth of every wrinkle, his eyes sparkling blue beyond the rims of his glasses. His eyebrows curled up over the gold rounds, as if they quite meant to escape.

  “No?” Eleanor asked. She looked from Mallory back to the seal and then the good Doctor Fionnlagh. “I think that were I in charge of this collection, having a priceless artifact, some three thousand years old, damaged by unexplained means would be quite dismaying.”

  The curator clasped his hands and Eleanor wondered if the bristles would be forthcoming. “Indeed, however if you would examine the case…” He trailed off, gesturing as if the vitrine would speak for him.

  Eleanor looked. It was much as any of the cases her own father used at his Nicknackatarium, perfectly suited for the protection and display of any kind of artifact. The glass panels of this case were perfectly set into their wooden frames, and those frames were edged in careful detail, this one showing a profusion of clever blooms; lotus, Eleanor thought, but didn’t ponder it overly long, for it was the glass—and the lock—that took her attention. Her eyes snapped to the curator.

  “Are you suggesting the case was never opened?”

  “I am saying it outright. It was not opened, Agent Folley.” Doctor Fionnlagh gestured to the lock which had not been tampered with. “I doubt our vandal found the keys—which only I keep—opened the case, chiseled off half the seal, and then set all back to rights.”

  “If you would open the case now?” Mallory asked.

  “Of course.”

  Eleanor stepped back, allowing the man access. She watched as he pulled a ring of keys from his pocket; he wore them as a chatelaine of sorts, depending from the leather belt about his middle. The keys were varied in size and made a pleasant sound as they slid through his hands; it did not take the doctor long to find the one he sought.

  The vitrine came open without a sound, the hinges of its door nicely oiled, and Eleanor crouched before the seals that remained. The room was devoted to Egypt’s scribes, this vitrine collecting a variety of seals and weights. Only the blue glass had been broken, and so cleanly it looked as though it might have been done three thousand years ago. There were no glass chips in the case, either, another vote against the idea that the vandal had opened the case and cracked the seal apart.

  But not having opened the case at all… Eleanor clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. That was equally baffling.

  “And you remain firm as to your statement, that nothing else is out of place,” Mallory said, pacing away from the case Eleanor studied. No windows breached, no guards knocked unconscious, no thefts this damage might be deflecting from?”

  “No, Agent Mallory,” Doctor Fionnlagh said, voice tight with worry. “Everything is in its place—and so too this seal, if we are being technical. It was not moved, only half of it is simply…gone.”

  Eleanor studied the vitrine’s contents as they sat, making a brief sketch of it within her field notebook. Mistral was not often called to the Louvre, the museum having its own security force, but they, wholly baffled by this occurrence, had called her and Mallory to come see what they might discover. Eleanor wasn’t sure yet what it was, but agreed it didn’t seem entirely right.

  With her sketch finished, she tucked book and pencil into her coat pocket and lifted the seal from its place. It was not heavy, a trifling thing considering the artifacts that filled the room around them and the museum beyond. And yet, it rested heavy in her hand. Heavy and somehow wrong. The wrongness wasn’t exactly a surprise, given the adventures she and Mallory had experienced of late. Ladies did not turn into jackals every day, did they—nor did they have the ancient god Anubis step up and claim one was now part of an ancient and proud family.

  The seal, which would have been pressed into wet clay, had been broken in no discernable pattern; one edge looked as though a crowbar had been applied, while the bottom edge contained smoother ridges, as if a hand had held it while the glass was warm. This also made no logical sense to Eleanor. Ancient glass was a curious artifact on its own; so little of it had survived, to find a piece such as this—whole and in good condition until recent days—was remarkable indeed.

  Eleanor had never seen a seal made of glass; the most unusual she had encountered were hematite, the most common clay or limestone. The damaged seal resembled a stamp seal, blocky, whereas others were normally fashioned into hollow, wearable cylinders one would always have on their person. Most contained amazingly detailed artworks, considering the relatively small size of the seal, though this glass piece was marked with only what appeared to be a falcon in flight as seen from above. Wings spread, head cocked, countless tiny feathers detailed. With the damage, the falcon had been struck in two.

  Doctor Fionnlagh believed it to be a relic of Nekhen, where the cult of Horus had arisen, but Eleanor doubted this theory, being the seal was glass. The ancient glass trade begun in Egypt, but dating
the artifact to Nekhen was entirely too unlikely in her mind; she could not quite convince herself that the roots of the glass trade reached five thousand years into the past. From wherever it hailed, the glass seal and its falcon had always been a stand out in the collection, Fionnlagh said, something that never quite made sense.

  “And now this curious little thing has been tampered with,” Eleanor murmured. She slid her thumb over what remained of the falcon marking, then wrapped it in the linen pouch she had brought. “Thank you for allowing us to take this, Doctor Fionnlagh; in the laboratories, we might discover something as to its ruin that we cannot see here.”

  “Doctor Thomas said that if anyone could sort it, it would be you, Agent Folley—that Mistral was lucky to have someone such as you working with them now,” Fionnlagh said.

  Eleanor dipped her head a little at that, uncertain of the collaboration herself. She had done nothing to earn the title of “agent” thus far, but refrained from correcting the doctor, given the story was labyrinthine in its nature.

  Mistral was an agency often devoted to secret investigations, moving behind the scenes by necessity, dipping their fingers into history as it suited them. She supposed one might say the same of archaeologists, but she couldn’t quite make that leap. Mistral’s own director and Virgil Mallory’s former father in law, Howard Irving, had bent every law, modern and ancient, in an effort to convince Anubis to bring his daughter back from the dead. In Irving’s wake, an entire archive filled with artifacts in need of cataloguing remained, and to Eleanor this task had fallen. She was equal parts anticipation and terror as to where the work would guide her, given where Anubis’s own rings had taken her. It wasn’t every day one travelled backward in time to meet a queen.

  “I appreciate your confidence, Doctor Fionnlagh, and will certainly—”

  From the depth of the room, a sneeze erupted from Mallory, who had taken to wandering on his own. Had his keen nose discovered something that might lead to their vandal?

  “I should leave you two,” Fionnlagh said. “If there’s anything I might yet assist you with, please let me know. You have my files, and if there is anything else…”

  Eleanor nodded and let the man go, tracing her own way toward Mallory who roamed deeper into the display cases. She smiled to think of him, also a new facet of her life, and was also equal parts terror and anticipation as to where their courtship might go. One didn’t normally court a man who could turn into a wolf, nor did one find herself held in such high regard by him.

  “Oh, Miss Folley, there isn’t a blasted thing here,” he murmured, with more than a smidge of irony, given the historical masterpieces that surrounded them. His eyes met hers as she rounded the case. “It’s as if our vandal were a ghost, but I suppose ghosts don’t gallivant about, breaking ancient Egyptian seals.”

  “Or maybe they do,” Eleanor countered, “given what we’ve learned of late regarding the mischievous nature of living and breathing Egyptian gods.” She peered into the case that held a beautiful clay statue of a scribe, ready to write what his master bid. “The first thing remains the same, yes? Motive. Who would have need of half an Egyptian seal?”

  Before leaving the museum, they took the opportunity to wander; the seal felt heavy in Eleanor’s pocket, but she noticed it not at all when Mallory clasped her hand as they stood before the Mona Lisa. It didn’t seem so old, this paint on poplar wood, not when she considered the age of the Egyptian works in the same building.

  What would Da Vinci think; what would he say if he knew countless numbers of people marveled over his works in this distant age? What would Hatshepsut herself think of the limitless artifacts hauled from the sand, preserved in cool, moderately lit rooms? Eleanor feared most visitors didn’t think twice about such things—they did not stop to think about the five thousand years between now and then; did not close their eyes and imagine Leonardo almost four hundred years ago, drawing wet paint across fresh poplar.

  “Maybe it was for love,” Mallory said, eyes resting on the Mona Lisa.

  Eleanor tightened her hold on his hand. “Look at her hands, Virgil; how could it not have been?”

  They left the museum being unable to come up with a list of motives for their elusive vandal that pleased them. If the seal did belong to a Horus cult, it was a place to start, but it felt as thin as spider’s silk to Eleanor and she wished for something stronger to hold to.

  Within the hansom cab that took them back to the 6th arrondissement townhouse that served as Mistral headquarters, Eleanor noted the handbreadth of space between she and Mallory on the bench. She wanted to close it, to slide over and curl into his warmth, but she didn’t, quite unsure of protocol in these matters. It was possibly unseemly, and would definitely draw a blush to her cheeks. No matter that the latter might go unnoticed in the cool of the November evening.

  And so she sat straight and curled her hands around the pouch that contained the glass seal, turning the mystery of it over and over in her mind as she turned the pouch over in her hands.

  Mallory’s hand came to rest upon her own, and she ceased turning the seal, staring at his hand resting atop hers. She thought that surely the cab should have ceased its motion, but it had not; the wheels whisked over the wet streets, the horse clomping onward as ever. Only Mallory’s gaze had paused, upon her it would seem, and Eleanor swallowed hard.

  “Agent Mallory,” she whispered.

  His mouth curled up within the whiskers that darkened his face, but only just, as if he sensed—or shared—her own debates over the moment. They had not often found themselves alone in the wake of their journey to Egypt, and so the cab, no matter its close confines, felt vast and full of potential.

  “Miss Folley.”

  That was when she felt his hand tremble, and she found it remarkable, for in his work he was not a man given to indecision or hesitation. Had that changed, or was it, she considered as she stared into his vast brown eyes, a result of going without his beloved opium? It had been two weeks now and though his mental clarity was improving, his body was often aware of its sudden lack.

  “Should your schedule permit,” he said, “I was thinking we could spend the morning practicing our forms. I can reserve the Mistral garden, to see that none intrude.”

  The townhouse enclosed a garden of flowers, trees, and fountain perfect for such purposes; while private rooms—including her own—looked down upon the space, every Mistral agent in residence was kind and thoughtful toward Virgil Mallory, as unique a specimen in the Mistral collection as the glass seal was within the Louvre. He was valued and respected—and, Eleanor suspected, it didn’t hurt that some of the younger agents thought Mallory might well tear their throats out if they had a moment’s criticism about his nature.

  Paris was a city of beautiful gardens and Eleanor held to the hope that if they were careful, and she learned the new ways of this body, they might one day run through them all on four feet and not two. So the idea that they could share this private space first was compelling, and one she would not refuse.

  “I would enjoy that, Mallory.” She enjoyed the warmth of his hand over hers, and leaned into the seat, closing her eyes. “I have no precise schedule for the cataloguing of the archive, in any case. I can’t quite fathom it. Do you think Director Walden would object to me acquiring an assistant?”

  Mallory squeezed her hands and she listened to him lean back as well, his head close to her own, his breathing low. “I think not,” he said, his thumb making slow circles across the back of her hand. “Though I would recommend care in such decisions, given we’ve no idea yet how deep Howard Irving’s influence yet runs.”

  Eleanor groaned a little, but nodded in agreement. “I suspect deep, given his position.” She opened her eyes, to find Mallory’s rooted on her. “It might be a way to sort through that debris, you know—not the debris of the archive, but rather Irving’s people. Those who may yet remain. If there are any you suspect…I could easily put them on a list for an interview. Given th
at Irving kept that archive… Well. Perhaps any who feel yet allied with the man would feel some investment in the archive’s contents as well.”

  Mallory’s dark brows lifted a little as he considered. “Some may even come forward on their own in their eagerness to…help you. Tesorina— your mind never fails to please.”

  “I worried, you know,” Eleanor said, not once reconsidering what she was about to share with him. It had been a long month—she felt as though she had known Virgil Mallory for much longer than she in fact had. “When you arrived with news of the ring’s theft. For my father’s sake, I wanted that case closed and forgotten, but it never would be, would it?”

  “You worried for him? That I would…open wounds of the past?”

  Eleanor laughed low. “I worried for you. That you and I would come to words because of my mind and all it had come to believe over the years I worked to solve my mother’s disappearance. I worried you would no longer have any interest in the case at all, even though it might mean not answering your own questions—and wasn’t certain I could do without such an ally as events came to a close.”

  “Mmm.” Mallory’s thumb stilled, but he did not remove his hand from hers. “You did quite fine, all things considered.”

  “We did.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes again—they had not yet reached the bump in the road that signaled they were near the townhouse—and she breathed. She knew it remained a point of tension between them, that she had so easily slipped Anubis’s rings onto her fingers, whisking them into the past. But to know what had become of her mother, they both understood she’d had little choice but to do as she had done. Coming face to face with the ancient god Anubis, conversing with him as easily as they did each other… Eleanor couldn’t quite sort that.

  Mallory kept his silence as they rode on, and Eleanor slid closer, which resulted in Mallory’s arm warmly encircling her shoulders after all. She thought she could have stayed right there for the remainder of the night, but when the cab pulled up to the townhouse, she disembarked as a proper person would, and walked inside with Mallory.